‘Aces’ or Not, Top-Tier Pitching Is Priceless
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

As we wait eagerly for something, or anything, to happen this off-season, the woolgathering has turned, as it usually does, to pitching, and how badly the Mets and Yankees need it. This, as it usually does, has turned to woolgathering about how the teams need true aces, and discussions of whether Daisuke Matsuzaka, Barry Zito, Jason Schmidt, Andy Pettite, Jake Peavy, Dontrelle Willis, and various other available or quasi-available hurlers are aces, and what the local nines ought to be willing to pay in blood, prospects, and cash for any or all of them.
The odd aspect of this — and it happens every year — is there seems to be an inverse proportion between how much people overrate a team’s need for pitching and how much they underrate individual pitchers. It’s inexplicable.
In various reports on the Mets’ offseason musings and valuations of various players, for instance, Zito has been described as being more a no. 2 or no. 3 starter than an ace. Insofar as this reflects the Mets downplaying their interest in a player with whom they will almost certainly be involved in at least tentative negotiations, it makes sense; I hope no one actually buys it, though. It’s a ridiculous idea.
Part of the problem here is semantic. If you ask most people what an ace is, they’ll list a few criteria: Basically, an ace should be a contender for the Cy Young Award every year, be possessed of dominant stuff, durability, and a certain aura on the mound. Tom Seaver, Roger Clemens, Sandy Koufax—these are aces.
Of course, there are fewer than a half dozen such pitchers in baseball at any one time. Johan Santana, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Chris Carpenter are probably the only pitchers around right now who are true aces in that sense. There are a few others who are arguably aces in this sense — Carlos Zambrano, John Smoltz — but most of the other elite pitchers in the game are either in sketchy health, inconsistent, or lack overwhelming pure stuff.
Another, perhaps more sensible definition of an ace is simply that they’re capable of being the best starter on a staff. Looking at things this way, an ace is either one of the 30 or so best pitchers in baseball, or one of the 15 best, as they would all by definition be aboveaverage as the best pitcher on a staff. Here, too, you run into a problem, which is that pitchers who are consistently that good are exceedingly rare. Judging by Baseball Prospectus’ Value Over Replacement Player stat, for instance, which takes both playing time and quality into account, just nine pitchers even have ranked among the 30 best in baseball in each of the last two years — Santana, Oswalt, Webb, Carpenter, Smoltz, Zambrano, Zito, Clemens, and John Lackey (and only three of them were pitching last month). Give Halladay a mulligan for having his leg broken by a line drive last year, and Willis and Peavy some credit for coming very close to being in the top 30 both years, and you’re still at just a dozen aces in baseball.
Really, the idea that a pitcher has to be a flawless, Seaver-esque pitcher to be considered an ace or a no. 1 starter is unrealistic. Furthermore, the idea that a team needs such a pitcher to win is just silly. Reductive as it is to say, teams don’t muster up good pitching by having pitchers who fit certain abstract specifications, but by having good pitchers. If you have a relatively softtossing but exceptionally durable lefty like Willis or Zito, that’s just as good as having a flamethrowing youngster like Justin Verlander who can’t quite be counted on to throw 200 innings. If you have a pitcher like Jake Peavy, who in his worst season is going to rank among the three-dozen or so best pitchers in baseball, you have a truly elite pitcher, worth any number of prospects and marginal pitchers.
The failure to realize this is part of what is behind the oddly skewed market for pitching talent. The likes of Peavy and even Zito are probably underrated by fans and the press; there’s been serious pondering by both about whether San Diego’s ace is worth three good young Mets players, which is almost like asking whether the Padres would be well-served to send a couple of prospects and a reliever east for David Wright. There’s a reason Willis or Peavy will command extraordinary value if traded, and a reason Zito will be paid a staggering amount of money. By any reasonable definition, they’re ace pitchers.
The other side of this is that teams sometimes fail to recognize that talent is distributed in a pyramid; if there are a dozen pitchers who can consistently be counted on to be top 30 in value, there are about twice or three times as many who can be solidly counted on to be top 45 or top 60. That’s no. 2 starter territory, and it’s not worth paying for in excess; Pittsburgh’s Zach Duke was about the 60th-best pitcher in baseball this year, and he had a 4.47 ERA. Wills, Peavy, and Zito are not no. 2 starters; but then, you don’t really need much more than a crew of no. 2 and no. 3 starters to do well in the major leagues. The Mets and Yankees, not being run by dunderheads, realize this, which is a good thing — it means they’re willing to pass on players if they don’t fit into their plans. Just don’t confuse their PR spin (“‘Jake Peavy is a no. 8 starter,'” an official speaking on condition of anonymity, said”) with serious evaluations of baseball talent. The two have nothing in common.